Customer Question: Fresh pressed sounds like wasn’t cooked?
We recently received a question from one of our customers and thought we would share our answer here:
Post Question: Fresh pressed sounds like wasn’t cooked? Am I misunderstanding? Because elderberries must be cooked before being consumed to prevent risk of cyanide poisoning.
Answer: Great question!
The elderberry is fresh-pressed before it is lightly pasteurized to be a shelf-stable juice. You are correct that the EUROPEAN Elderberry (Sambucas Nigra) has cyanide in the seeds which the heat of pasteurization and bottling destroys. LIONBERRY by MAMA PAJAMA only uses The American Elderberry (Sambucas canadensis) which does not have the high cyanide in the seeds like the European. The University of Missouri has some excellent research and articles explaining this.
HOWEVER, we use fresh-pressed fruit (which means it is pressed immediately after picking) then we do a light pasteurization for shelf stability. We avoid cooking it down, reducing it to syrup, boiling the fruit because a high and long heat degrades the delicate antioxidants. We are currently being 3rd party tested for healthy plant properties. Watch for this data on our website www.lionberry.us.
Thank you so much for the question!